


no light, no light

by aelysian



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Hijacked Peeta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 04:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelysian/pseuds/aelysian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can hear Johanna laughing at the boy with the bread, the boy who fell for a lie, will fall for a lie, because of a kiss and because of a song.</p><p>Originally posted to Livejournal in April 2012</p>
            </blockquote>





	no light, no light

He thinks he falls in love at five, when the grey-eyed girl from the Seam opens her mouth and the voice that comes out is so pure, everything else goes silent.  He only learns her name later, but in that moment, Peeta Mellark knows exactly what his father meant.  
  
The baker's hands are sparkling with powdery white flour and laughs when his son tells him about Katniss Everdeen, right before he gives him the most important piece of advice he'll never heed:  
  
Never love anyone more than they love you.  
  
It doesn't make much sense to him because aren't you supposed to love the people you love just as much as you can?  (He loves Mother more than she loves him, but he thinks that's all right because there are three Mellark boys and only one of her.)  
  
He nods as solemnly as a five-year-old can and forgets about it for a little while.  
  
A little while turns out to last twelve years, until the day of his fifth Reaping, when Primrose Everdeen screams and is carried away by a boy he has seen many, many times before.  When Effie Trinket calls his name and he stands closer to Katniss Everdeen than he ever has before and she's gleaming, shining in the weak sunlight and she looks him in the eye for the first time in five years and takes his hand and without opening her mouth, she says _I'm going to kill you_.  
  
He decides then that's he's going to let her, and if there's someone in his ear screaming _Idiot!_ he doesn't notice because she's going to rip his throat out and he's going to love her for it.  
  
  
(Somewhere else, Peeta throws up and the bile burns his throat.   They stick green under his skin and he wonders if maybe that will make her love him now and laughs and laughs until he cries.)  
  
  
Katniss is glittering.  Katniss is on fire.  He tells the whole world about Katniss under brilliant lights that make everything shine and it's all so beautiful he doesn't stop to think before slicing open his heart on stage so they can see her name carved inside.  _I am a fool!_ he shouts for the flashing eyes of the cameras and the audience explodes with praise.  He is a fool and it is glorious.  
  
She attacks him afterwards and draws first blood and he wants to tell her _Not yet, not yet, I haven't earned it yet._  
  
He does, of course.  He shoves his knife into the throat of District 8, hurriedly, messily, trying to not choke or cry or scream when she dies.  It's horrific, the glistening blood staining his hands, seeping into his skin like a shining Capitol tattoo, but this is what love is – it is giving and giving and giving so she can have all the good parts of him.  
  
And it is worth it, it is completely worth it when Cato's sword leaves him convulsing in the cave where Katniss loves him and the rain drips like oil from the stone walls and dark rainbows are slick in her hair.  She kisses him so he stays, because he has forgotten that he is a fool, he has forgotten that she has taken all he has to give except his life and he'll give her that too because he thinks it's fair, because Katniss Everdeen loves him and that's all he's ever wanted.  _You are pathetic,_ she says but the fever steals the words away from his ears.  
  
They force purple berries into Foxface's mouth; he clamps her jaw shut and makes her swallow, feels it the moment the blood stills in her veins and hair like gold and flame that he thinks about taking for Katniss, but the hovercraft bears the body away before he can reach for his knife.  
  
She kills Cato with one powerful twist of her jaws.  He watches from the golden light of the Cornucopia and wonders how many of the others she killed this way; the cannon booms and as daylight comes the remnants of coal dust sparkle on her skin and she smiles with razor-edge teeth as she raises her bow.  He throws his knife into the water but her arrow is already piercing his heart.  _But I just wanted to love you,_ he cries out, forgetting his promise, and waits to die.  
  
  
(He doesn't, of course, and he screams and screams every time they reach this part of the story and he can hear Johanna laughing at the boy with the bread, the boy who fell for a lie, will fall for a lie, because of a kiss and because of a song.  Every time.)  
  
  
They go home because everyone loves their newest killer but she doesn't love him and it's too late because there isn't anything left of himself to do anything but this: her silence means that _You are mine_ and he doesn't have voice enough to say anything but _yes._  
  
There's a boy in the forest with dark hair and quick hands: Katniss kisses him in the shadow of the trees when the cameras aren't watching and when they are, she wraps herself in silk and sequins and comes to find him.  She never has to go far, because he's always, always right where she left him.  
  
She pulls him into her bed and breaks skin with her teeth and opens all his scars with her fingernails because he is hers even if he can't quite remember why anymore.  
  
He proposes under the sun and she twists her arrow to bring him to his knees before saying yes, saying _I love you_ to the sky and _You are never going to leave me_ against his lips and twirls away to a man with hair like the sunset.  
  
He kills someone and hopes she notices.  She doesn't.  There is no cave this time around and there are others with more to give.  He drops the bread on the coals and eats the searing black crust alone.  
  
 He chases golden thread and lightning and bloody rivers of all their victims and she's calling out his name, his name he can't remember so he screams hers into the trees because it's the same thing, it's the same; he's crying _don't leave, don't leave._   He falls into the sand and the salt leeches the life from his body and the sun is burning the baker's boy to ash and bone.    
  
 _Katniss!_  
  
She catches fire white and red and black and she is the Mockingjay, with a mutt's teeth and Seam eyes, soot wings and a girl's smile.  She is tearing into him, and he can finally see what she is because she is everything he gave her.  She is the monster he painted into a girl and gilded with love so they would all love her too and all that's left is a fool clutching the husk of a heart.  He is Pygmalion.  He is Prometheus.  He is Pandora.    
  
 _I killed them all,_ she says and he sobs, _Yes, I killed them all for you._  
  
 _I hate you,_ he says, _I love you,_ because he doesn't know the difference anymore, he doesn't know anything anymore and it's all her fault, it's all his fault.  So he strikes a match and sets fire to the bitterness and burns it for strength; he is his mother's son, in the end, when he wraps his hands around her swan neck and squeezes until he feels the hollow bones snap and he doesn't feel anything at all.  
  
  
(The venom is bitter nectar on the tip of his tongue, it's the rush in his veins and the first breath that eases broken ribs.  It's green and true.  District 12 licks cracked lips and leaves them bloody; when everything's shining again, he says _Show me._   So they do.)


End file.
